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XHTML 1.0 is HTML rewritten in XML. It appears in three flavours, transitional, frameset and strict. XHTML 1.1 is XHTML 1.0 Strict modularised. XHTML 2.0 is under discussion.

However HTML 4.01 will be around for some time, but IMHO the way for the future is to use the latest version avaiulble and get round any problems that crop up. If you can't do something, find a way round it or find an alternative, therefore XHTML is my choice, and preferably XHTML 1.1.

And from a standards viewpoint, which also becomes an accessibility viewpoint as sites compliant with standards are in the main compliant with accessibility standards, XHTML forces you to comply with standards and hence is 'better'.

You don't have to take a much closer look at XHTML if you know correct programming practices in HTML - there are a few more strict rules, but nothing insurmountable with a little bit of application. People round here must be gettingfed up with me saying that I've riun an XHTML 1.1/CSS course for first year undergraduates - and it's been largely successful. If students follow the rules then they succeed, and I imagine it's no different from people in the general population of web developers.

So if you want to be with the future, XHTML - if you want to delay your development , HTML. But in all cases declare a !DOCTYPE and validate your (X)HTML and CSS code because this is the only way that you can be sure to give yourself least problems.

JohnNo electrons were harmed during the creation, transmission
or reading of this posting. However, many were excited and
some may have enjoyed the experience.

I'm planning to rewrite my dutch portal. I don't know anything about xhtml, but I was wondering if I should rewrite it in html or xhtml and if it's worth to take a closer look to xhtml.

You needn't have any other special knownledge to use XHTML, all you need is to mind that if a tags has a closing tag you simply oughtn't to omit it, then if a tag doesn't have a closing tag you should use this form:

You have to do your layout via CSS in XHTML, i.e. no <font> tags anymore, for instance.

While mostly true, you can still get away with some presentational HTML in XHTML Transitional, as a few deprecated attributes are allowed (i.e. <body bgcolor="blah">). It's not the "best practice" approach and I recommend it be avoided if you plan on using XHTML, but still somewhat allowed.

Keep in mind that it's absolutely no hurry to jump to a non-table based layout, as the support among mainstream browsers is still lacking. I'm personally planning to move to XHTML/CSS layouts one year after Longhorns release.